Mice

A problem I don't have yet: 30,000 mice.

Google search of the day

"attention deficit" child children: 246,000 hits. (Adding other keywords like "teen, teenager, kids," and the like, gets more.)



"attention deficit" adult adults: 76,300 hits.



The Yahoo! Health entry for ADD doesn't even have the words "adult" or "adults" on it.



I know it's a problem for children (and sometimes an overdiagnosed one), but it's not like you outgrow it the minute you hit voting age. And in kids, I think the disaster scenario is "s/he will fail in school and never get into college and never get a good job," which admittedly would be a bad thing; but in adults, the disaster scenario is that you can't keep a job if you manage to get one. Who cares what your third-grade math test scores were if you get fired for never getting any work done?



Sigh...

Apocalypse right this minute

It's here. The end of the world. The pale horse, the sky rolling up like a carpet, the stars dropping like figs from a tree, the whole deal. The Olsen twins are on People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People list.



So's Susan Sarandon. That's going to piss some people off. (Although I have to say that, altogether, the anti-war protesters are a good deal easier on the eyes.)



And so is a flamenco dancer named Farruquito. There's a stage name for you. (At least I hope it's a stage name.)

Hello, image searchers

(Actually posted January 27, 2004.)



Hi there. Are you here for the increasingly-popular "li'l kim burqa" picture everyone's been searching for and linking to? The post I included it in is way down the page, "The letter of the law," from April 30, 2003. I actually found it on another site, but I downloaded it and put it on my server, because (rather ironically) I didn't want to steal the other guy's bandwidth.



So anyway. You're here. Feel free to stick around and browse for a while. And, while you're at it, if anyone knows how or why this particular image on my server got so popular, drop me a comment, okay?



P.S. If you're one of those people who thinks women should stay in burqas, you'll probably find my opinions...uncongenial. Don't bother telling me I'm going to hell, okay?

Stats (curiosity, too)

Netherlands, Taiwan, China, Korea. And, somewhat alarmingly, state.gov and nipr.mil. (Did you ever get the feeling that you're being watched?)



The state.gov one came from the Blogger home page, so I'm guessing it's just a person at the State Dept. who surfs blogs in his/her spare time. But the .mil one came from a U.S. Navy IP, which, when I plugged it into an address bar, didn't get me anywhere; when I did a Google search on it, I found that someone else had contacted the military saying he'd been finding the IP in his logs, and was wondering what it was; he got the following reply, which I quote it its entirety:

F ...



You know all you need to know.



hostmaster@nic.mil

Alrighty then! I'll be on my way now...



According to my log, the referrer was an archive page in another blog, which had a lot to say about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, and had a random Blogger link button. I'm guessing this guy's page sent up some very red flags for the military Web search people/engine, and they just followed the links to see where they went.



Hm. I haven't said anything incriminating, have I? I've expressed certain doubts about government military policy, and if you've been paying any attention you know how I feel about Mr. I.H.I.D.V.F.H. Santorum, but that's about it...



Oh well. That's the thing about the Worldwide Web: it's worldwide.



I've spent too much time sitting in front of my computer already—you'd think I got enough of that during the work week—so J. and I are going to go to Center City and hit some bookstores. He's looking for a book on ADD, and I need some more Michael Connelly novels. (Well, I don't need them, but I want them.)



Okay. Getting up. Logging off. Really.

The Kentucky Derby

Postulate: The Kentucky Derby has the highest ratio of analysis and blather to actual sporting event time. On ESPN, there's a three-hour Kentucky Derby Preview; on NBC, a one-and-a-half-hour "Kentucky Derby" block, featuring the actual running of the race; and on ESPN2, a one-hour "Kentucky Derby Recap." And that's just today; I don't know what might have been going on previously. So that's five and a half hours of programming time for an approximately two-minute race. I'm not especially good at division (I think I missed that day in third-grade math class), but I believe that works out to 99.4% analysis/blather and 0.6% sporting event.



(There may be a similar/higher percentage for the Super Bowl, since that has an entire week of run-up time for an approximately four-hour game [although that includes time-outs and half-time in addition to on-the-field playing time], but I don't feel like looking it up and figuring it out now.)

Bunkum alert

Man, what a scam this is: Essences Online. Selling flower essences—okay, fine, they're obtained from actual, physical flowers—but also "environmental essences" and "gem elixirs." There is no such goddamn thing as a gem elixir! You cannot extract juice from a gem! The dictionary definition for elixir does indicate that it can be a powder, which you could indeed get from a gem; but powder is not what they're selling. Nope, it's a liquid that has somehow been infused with the properties of the gem. In other words, it's water that they've looked at while thinking about gems. Same with the "environmental essences." I have to quote this, it's too priceless to paraphrase:

The preparation of an environmental essence begins with the identification of specific elemental qualities in the environment that we wish to enter into a co-creative healing agreement with. We then extend an attunement from our hearts to the devic and elemental beings that represent these qualities. Through this attunement we communicate our love and blessings, and ask that the energies we have identified be transferred into the bowl of water that we have prepared. We accept the essence gratefully as the environment responds. The resulting essence is totally unique, as the vibrational qualities it contains can never be duplicated in exactly the same way.

(This particular description is from the Alaskan Flower Essence Project.)



So...yes, they are selling water. For approximately $11 an ounce!



Oh, here's a quote from the Angelic Essences seller:

Angelic Essences produce no harmful side effects and will do nothing if not needed.

Right...because it's fucking water!



Damn, I wasted all that time on a Yale education and I could've just been looking at water while thinking about gems and elements and angels.